Agree with everything, although I would say at least in Soto 45 mins seems to be the maximum for one period during sessin, and 15 of that will be kinhin (walking meditation), I tend to do about an hour a day in two sessions, but any longer and there isn’t really any reward.
Drugs are a hard no, I mean do them all you want but don’t combine the two.
As a "beginner" meditator, 20 mins a day is plenty though. As an "experienced" meditator 20 mins is enough too (you may in time meditate anytime/anywhere).
It's when people take on themselves to "do much more", mix several spiritual practices or follow cults that do extreme regimes that things might sometimes get crazy. Most people do OK, but there are people who need medication or have deep-rooted issues that maybe should not be doing meditation, at least not until those issues have been settled.
Another issue is that some deeper practices were basically developed for monks, to be learned after years of initiation and acceptance.
Why not?
Taking drugs, even alchohol, stresses the body and mind, and may distort and cloud the spirit. This work against yoga / equanimity / clarity.
There are traditions that uses drugs ritually, so is part of those traditions. Though, it is often a more perilous and dedicated path. Not everyone needs to live life as a sage or munk.
So doing sadhana (practices) will work over time. It's not a competition.
An imperfect analogy is taking drugs and then driving fast on a windy mountain road.
Meditation will take you down many unknown paths: difficult paths, painful paths, joyful paths...
An intensive meditation sounds more like a doing, like hitting the gym hard on a 30 day diet plan, rather than a state of being meditative and progressively turning inwards. You can't intensively find your inner peace, as an intense thing isn't a peaceful thing.
To my mind, intensive meditation is still going to result in something that feeds the ego, rather than something that feeds the soul. You wouldn't call it intensive if it wasn't ego-driven.
There’s a saying, “if you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha” which effectively addresses the comment that I think you are making.
For some reason, since meditating fairly regularly over the last 5 years, I seem to be quite attune to the troubles drugs and alcohol cause me. It's probably one of the dangers of new practitioners who download applications and get started without any background fall into, they haven't read some of the wise teaching that other may have been exposed too.
I'm not a Buddhist per-se, but I do believe the teachings exist for a reason.
I also remember having a very rough time early in my practice, I think I did too much too early and I was also using Marijuarna which seemd to make some of the issues worse. I backed off that and I recovered and meditate now with no issues.
> "I spent my last day in Los Angeles riding on a Segway, buying legal marijuana and staring at some turtles in an on-campus pond at UCLA. I was unsettled yet intrigued by Britton’s message. Some of the adverse experiences she had described were similar to challenges I had faced. But, at this point I was a decade into my intensive mindfulness meditation practice. I was too deep to get out. "
There's just so many things that is bad with this new-new age wave.
First of all, doing spiritual practices generally do not go hand-in-hand with taking drugs. Just taking marijuana or hash may bring panic attacks, and even psychotic episodes. If you rely on drugs to keep your emotions in check, you're already dealing with them wrong. Meditation together with drugs won't help that, but may worsen things if done intensively.
Second, there's no such thing as "intensive mindfulness meditation practice". Mindfulness is gentle and short, and more about stillness than meditation.
Third, "intensive meditation" is something everybody should be wary about. Max 20 minutes is recommended per day, and there is no need to do more in order to "get anywhere faster". Most important of all, do it with an experienced teacher you trust. The most important ingredient in meditation is to let go and relax, and is not yet another "work".
In the end, something can always go wrong. Not everyone can deal with meditation, and not sure if there's a way to ensure to filter out people. Often people come to classes because they have some issues, not when everything's alright. So there are already things to deal with. Recommended is that people doing medication like antipsychotics, should be prescreened from joining class.
In the end, meditation is a powerful tool. But not sure the stress of Western life is the right way to channel the clarity and calmess one may get from it. You may come back from long retreats, but need tools to deal with the stresses in modern day life. So just meditation may be too confusing or not enough, to deal with one's life once more.